The Career IDEA

With appointments and meetings to remember, tasks to complete and jobs to finish, life can get crazy in the business world. To help limit the stress and anxiety of everyday business life, here are a few “hacks” for you and your busy colleagues, including keeping a calendar, getting rest, utilizing technology and keeping a clean workspace.

4 Hacks to Increase Productivity

(Family Features) With appointments and meetings to remember, tasks to complete and jobs to finish, life can get crazy in the business world. That’s why busy professionals need to stay on top of their game with simple tricks to help take care of work and life, day in and day out.

Luckily, solutions exist so that your schedule won’t drag you down. To help limit the stress and anxiety of everyday business life, here are a few “hacks” for you and your busy colleagues.

Get Some Rest
Without getting good sleep and recharging your brain, it’s impossible to stay on top of everything going on around you. It may be challenging to carve out time dedicated to resting, but it can pay off in the long run by planning to cut yourself some slack and get out of the office.

Make sure to get away from your cell phone, computer and other devices well before crawling into bed, that way your brain isn’t still charging ahead when you’re trying to shut down.

Keep a Calendar
One of the simplest ways to organize your life is to write down your schedule – even the simplest, most mundane appointments. Being able to take a quick peek at your calendar to see what you have to do in the coming hours, days and weeks can help take pressure off trying to memorize everything.

Whether you’re using a physical calendar or typing appointments and reminders into an app on your phone or computer, it’s an easy way to stay on track.

Utilize Technology
With so much technology available at your fingertips today, make sure you’re taking advantage of the technological tools at your disposal, such as Bamboo Slate and Bamboo Folio smartpads.

These tools seamlessly bridge the gap between paper and digital life by turning your handwritten notes into digital files, helping you to keep track of appointments, ideas and anything else that pops into your brain.

“Paper notebooks still play an essential role at the beginning of the idea process,” said Mike Gay, Senior Vice President for Wacom’s Consumer Business Unit. “They are often the last analog step within an otherwise fully digital lifestyle. So our goal was simple: Add the benefits of digital technology to the paper notebook and create an intuitive tool to help make ideas, no matter where and how they start.”

Bamboo smartpads sync paper notes through the Wacom Inkspace app, which offers the advantages of working digitally, including easy editing, organizing and sharing. The sleek tablets also allow files to be exported and made available to several third-party apps, that way you have options at your fingertips.

Keep a Clean Desk
Although it’ll take a few extra minutes each day, cleaning your workspace can help take away stress. With a messy desk, you might feel cluttered, disorganized and overwhelmed, so toss your trash and unnecessary papers.

Cleaning can also be a good way to wind down when it’s almost time to clock out for the day. By clearing your mind and wiping down your space instead of stressing over the final few minutes of work, you’re helping yourself in more ways than one.

Life can get hectic and it’s not always easy to slow things down. Instead of letting time – or a lack thereof – wear you down, use the resources around you to help take on the day, every day.

(BPT) - Imagine waking up early on a Monday morning with a smile on your face. You’re excited to get the week started because you love what you do. Or how about taking a Tuesday afternoon all to yourself, without having to ask permission and use your precious vacation time? It might sound like a dream, but with a career in fitness, it could be your reality.

A career in fitness is not only flexible, but financially rewarding, and caters to a variety of personalities. The fitness industry is booming, so there’s plenty of opportunities to grow and be successful with your very own business. If you’ve been on the fence about a career in the fitness industry, here are some reasons that might convince you to finally make the switch.

Make a living by helping others.

“I love nothing more than using the research based, scientifically proven approach I have learned through my education to help others accomplish their goals,” says Heather Esterline, a graduate of Life Time Academy, a professional fitness trainer program that lets you step into the industry and build upon your career goals. Working in the fitness industry is highly rewarding as you help people improve their health. You have the opportunity to be an important mentor and trusted friend in every client’s life.

See tangible results when working with clients.

As you work with clients and watch them reach their goals, you can see the results of your knowledge and expertise. Whether you’re helping someone lose weight, gain muscle or simply learn the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, you’ll be rewarded as each client continues to make progress.

Choose your specialty.

Whether you want to be a personal trainer, group fitness instructor, yoga teacher or even a health club owner, you have the chance to choose your focus. No matter how you want to enter the fitness industry, there’s a class or program to pave your path. Life Time Fitness’ personal training certification program offers several different courses and passes to help you earn the credentials you need to get your career off the ground. The Life Time Academy has two different certification courses that start on October 17 — the Premier and Elite Certification courses. During the Elite Professional Fitness Trainer Courses, participants not only become certified throughout the 24-week course, but also get hands on experience during an externship consisting of 120 hours, altogether equaling 260 contact hours. If learning the foundations of personal training and corrective exercise is more of your interest, the Premier Professional Fitness Trainer Course may be better for you, lasting 16 weeks and 120 contact hours.

Work with a variety of people in many places.

When you have a career in fitness, you’re not sitting in an office, having meetings with the same coworkers every day. From personal trainer to health club owner, there are so many opportunities for working in this field. You can be self-employed, work with a team or even establish your own business and employ a staff. Whether you want to work indoors or out, choose your environment, your schedule and enjoy a healthy work/life balance.

It's one of the fastest growing careers.

Positive vibes and low stress make personal training one of the top rated professions by CNN Money Magazine. And it doesn’t take long for your personal training career to skyrocket. For example, Jason Sweetnam, personal trainer and team weight loss instructor for Life Time Fitness, was 250 pounds and living an unhealthy lifestyle when he decided to begin his fitness journey. He decided to improve his health and is now a working full-time helping others get their fitness and nutrition on track.

Are you looking for a career change that allows you to be passionate about your work? If any of these reasons speak to you, then it might be time to break into the fitness industry.